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Dreams 11
Lynch died last time, and has been replaced by Adams. Adams You are back in Boston, in your dark room, developing the thousands of feet of film that you took in the Amazonian jungle. You are sure to get the Pulitzer for this journey. It's true, there were but a few survivors, but incontrovertible proof of Fawcett's supposed lost city, and the man's last diary itself are guaranteed to win you the prize. You remember the jungle as the images slowly come clear out of the emulsion. The first native tribesman you saw in Corumba, then Cuyaba, then Bakairi post. The dense jungle, and some denizens: a howler monkey, a macaw, the ripple of a crocodile disappearing underwater. Then the troubles: the aftermath of the first native attack, the horrifying creature, which is a blurred image, overexposed by the explosion, the effects of illness and disease far away from civilization, as members succumbed to fever, sores, and malnutrition. The faces of the expedition, growing more gaunt and emaciated as time goes by, with a few exceptions. The strange creatures killed by Lynch and the others, mostly unrecognisable by gunshot and dissection. Shadows start appearing in the photographs, somehow a part of the people pictured- surrounding them like a malignant aura, shining out of their increasingly crazed eyes. There are strange light effects- skin looking shinier than it should, or more lined; subtle deformations hidden by bulky clothing, images looking double exposed, men superimposed with beasts. The conflicting memories make you shudder, and you spill some of the chemicals. Acrid smoke rises up from the developing pans, and soon all your work is engulfed in toxic fumes as you crawl to the safety of the door, and fresh air. XianQi The jungle is relentless, not malignant, but implacable, with the uncaring brutality of raw nature. Man is a controlling force, but immersed in dark chaos, even reason, intelligence, and forethought can be outnumbered. People fall to simple maladies that would be trivial in the rest of the world: a blistered ankle, that soon swells, crippling movement; an insect bite that festers into an oozing wound, a simple cut from a river rock that fills with pustulant infection, a fever that soon leads to delirium and incapacitation, a misstep that leads to a broken arm and excruciating pain for weeks. But you can heal them. It seems so simple, now. Burning some vines, flowers, and perhaps some feathers, saying a few crucial words, and rent bones knit together, fevers fade to cool health, infections fade, and wounds close. The raw, harsh nature of the jungle may create many dangers, but it also brings about their resolution. Matheson Your perspective is much changed. With many eyes and ears you see the world, but with one consciousness. You are a gestalt, with one goal: to clean and neaten the chaos around you. You have been closed-minded, and overly reliant on your past experience. Metals and plastics, electricity and mathematics have an important place, certainly, and a noble purpose, but there are other techniques and materials not taught by the schools in America, not understood by other engineers. Natural tools, living machines, have a versatility and utility and strength underestimated and not understood by many. Simple fish withstand pressures unbearable to manufactured tolerances, spider silk is many times stronger than steel, fleas jump the equivalent distance of hundreds of feet in any direction, eels produce electricity, octopi produce camouflage nearly impossible to pierce, and mere ants can lift a hundred times their own body weight, producing miracles of architecture in their quest to move forward, to build, to construct. With many bodies, one mind, and simple appendages, you know how to produce mighty structures, strong bridges, clear a forest, and use the raw materials liberated for nearly any imaginable purpose: food, fuel, construction material. There is more glory and potential in the world than you have could have imagined. Russel There is a sepulchral sound as a stone door closes behind you. Looking around you, there is darkness, with a small auroral light, which you follow. In time, you come to a cave, lit from above, open to the sky. There are treasures here; ancient artifacts reminiscent of the Antikythera mechanism, and the Baghdad battery, but in much newer condition, and less determinate purpose. The materials are simple, stone, bone, bronze, and shell, but the construction is complex. You desperately want to return with these items to your study, or university, or someplace with paper, pens, and tools for examination, but there is no other exit, and no access upward, save some flimsy vines. Attempting the climb, you merely pull numerous of them down, until there is a small pile on the smooth stone floor. You get a fire going, and looking upward at the inviting sky, muttering "Vernek Zhathog, shanthegr thragn kulkrent, kooshth tubring," you are suddenly elsewhere, in an overgrown clearing with mountains in the distance, overlooking a small hole in the ground, filled with the finds you were just contemplating. Finding and trapping a small rodent burrowing nearby, you crush it underneath your boot, repeating the words, and are now on a mountainside, overlooking a vast plain of thick treetop canopy. There is a stream, and you rest, refreshing your thirst. After a time, a deer approaches cautiously to drink. Your hunter's instincts heightened, you remain still and quiet, moving achingly slowly, until you can pounce on the creature, wrestling it to the ground, and plunging your knife deep into its chest. Another recitation as blood gushes, then drips into the wet dirt, and you are returned to your university office, ready to write up your extraordinary find and reveal it to the world. Category:Dreams Log